


blurs the darkness like a chandelier

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Missing Moments, hints of hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 17:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13195008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: The thing is, he’s always liked her. He didn’t really get it for a long time, and even after he finally did, he didn’t do anything about it.Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper had known each other since they were four, they did everything together, they were best friends. But had she really been in love with him? Did Betty even know what love really was?An exploration of Jughead and Betty's feelings and friendship, leading up to their kiss in 1.06, complete with childhood memories and missing moments from the series.





	1. the subtle grace of gravity, the heavy weight of stone

The thing is, he’s always liked her. He didn’t really get it for a long time, and even after he finally did, he didn’t do anything about it. 

Jughead thinks if you asked anyone why he never made a move on Betty Cooper, they would probably answer either ‘Does Jughead even like girls? Or people?’ or ‘Archie Andrews’, but neither of those were quite the answer. They were just puzzle pieces. 

Yes, Betty Cooper had had a crush on Archie Andrews since the seventh grade; this was painfully obvious to essentially everyone in town except, of course, Archie Andrews. But unlike the rest of the town, he didn’t assume they were soulmates, or endgame as Kevin put it sometimes, or whatever other pointless fate-based concept people threw around. Betty liked Archie. Archie would probably realize he liked Betty at some point, because Archie Andrews was a fool, but not that big of a fool. But Betty Cooper, Jughead was sure, was destined for bigger things. Bigger than a white picket fence happy ending with Archie Andrews. Bigger than Riverdale. Bigger than any of them. If anyone could claw their way out of cult-like grips of “the town with pep!”, it was Elizabeth Cooper. 

And no, Jughead didn’t really… like people very much. At least not that way. Okay, he didn’t like people that much at all, but he definitely didn’t really like them that way. He didn’t even realize he liked Betty that way until halfway through their freshman year of high school. It was something Betty said, about Archie, ironically enough. 

They were in a booth at Pop’s, just the two of them, drinking milkshakes and sharing a plate of fries. Archie was at football practice, so they’d sequestered themselves to talk about their shared advanced english class without Archie’s eyes glazing over in boredom until he changed the subject.

“Have you ever wanted someone to be happy so badly it kind of hurt?” Jughead had said thoughtfully, watching Betty sip her strawberry milkshake. She tilted her head, frowning. 

“What do you mean?”

“Like you want them to be happy so much that, even if you had to walk out of their life, it would be okay, because you want them to be happy that badly.” Jughead shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly and shoving a handful of fries in his mouth. 

“Of course.” Betty had said, like it was the simplest thing in the world “Archie.” 

So, that was when he finally realized the way he liked Betty wasn’t the way he liked Archie. 

There were a lot of reasons he never did anything about it. There was Archie. There was the fact that even he didn’t know how he felt for so long. There was the fact that she deserved so much better than him, than Archie, than this town. 

Then, of course, there were his parents. Good old FP and Gladys, who’d known each other since high school, who fell in love hard and fast and young and blew up the same way, taking their whole family out— collateral damage. Really, none of the Riverdale parents were shining examples of healthy relationships. Mary and Fred broke up. Hal and Alice were together, technically, but they were both terrifying Stepford robots who should never, ever be considered. The Blossoms were… well, they were the Blossoms. Penelope was a manipulative demon and Clifford was, as he found out later, a literal murderer. 

So if you had asked post-Pop’s-revelation Jughead if he would ever tell Betty how he felt, he would have laughed in your face. But time passes and things change. Little things. Big things. People, places, beliefs. 

It starts after the Twilight closes its doors for the last time. Jughead is sitting alone in the projection room when there’s a knock on the door. 

“We’re closed! Forever!” Jughead yells, rolling his eyes in the darkness. 

“Juggie, let me in.” Betty’s voice is tired and quiet, like when she used to have sleepovers with him and Archie at the Andrews’ house, before Alice decided she was old enough for that to be considered ‘scandalous’.

“Betty?” he asks, confused, swinging the door open. The old hinges creak in protest. 

“Sorry I missed your last show, Jug.”

“I mean, it wasn’t my show. I’m hardly James Dean.” Jughead shrugged, attempting a smirk because, when in doubt, joke. 

“Oh please, Jughead Jones. We all know you secretly fancy yourself the charming rebel outcast with great hair. Don’t lie.” she gives him a tired smile and shoves him slightly. 

“Hey now, you’re the one who suggested the movie, Betts. Maybe you’ve got a type.” the minute he says it, Jughead regrets every decision he has ever made. But Betty just smiles, rolling her eyes. 

“I am sorry I missed it. I love that movie. And digitally it’s just not the same. The white noise and visual imperfection of reel just adds something essential to the whole experience.” she sighs, wrapping her arms around herself. She looks sad and tired and he wonders what on earth happened tonight. For neither the first or last time that night, Jughead speaks without thinking. 

“I can run it again. If you want. We can watch it.”

That’s how Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper end up sitting on an old blanket in the empty parking lot of the Twilight, watching Rebel Without a Cause in the middle of the night. Her head is on his shoulder, and doesn’t move, even as the credits roll. 

“You knew about Grundy and Archie.” 

It’s not a question. Jughead nods.

“I did.” he sighs, leaning back against the shed behind them. “I didn’t tell you because—”

“Because Archie is your best friend. You wanted to protect him. I would have done the same thing.” 

“I tried to talk some sense into him.” Jughead said, sighing again. Betty actually snorted. 

“Oh Juggie. When has that ever worked? How long have we known him? A decade?”

“A compelling point, Cooper.”

“Ugh, no, don’t remind me I’m related to anyone I know right now.”

“What happened?” Jughead frowned, shifting to look at Betty more directly. 

“My mom went full crazy. She found a gun in my room, and read my diary—”

“A gun?” Jughead grabbed Betty’s shoulders, stopping her. 

“It wasn’t MY gun Jughead! Who do you think I am, a noir film femme fatale? It was Grundy’s gun.”

“Why did you have it?”

“V and I broke into Grundy’s car. Which is part of the whole mom-goes-full-crazy story. Grundy isn’t even her real name, and we tried to talk to Archie about it, but I made the mistake of writing it in my diary, which my mother read when she found the gun, and then she chased down and cornered Archie and Grundy, but instead of being mad that Ms. Grundy was a literal predator, she just wanted to screw over Archie! All because he and Jason Blossom, who supposedly broke my sister’s heart, have the same hair color.” 

“So… you’re upset about Archie?” he wasn’t baiting her, he really wasn’t. He couldn’t tell exactly what the problem was.

“I’m upset about Archie, I’m upset WITH Archie, I’m upset about my terrifying mother, I’m upset about the Twilight! Our town is falling apart, Juggie. Our friends are falling apart.”

Jughead puts his arm around her, giving her a one armed hug. This too reminds him of when they were younger, the times Archie was off with his other friends, or that Archie was grounded, or that Betty got worried about how Jughead was doing and rode her bike to the trailer park, unbidden, to bring him Lunchables she stole from her fridge. 

“Something sure is rotten in the state of Riverdale, Betts.” he murmurs, rubbing her upper arm with his hand. 

That’s when it starts. Except not really. Except it started when they were kids, when Jughead was the one who could tell all was not well in Castle Cooper. When Betty could see the way Jughead hid food away for later. They loved Archie, and Archie loved them, and he was an essential cornerstone of their friendship, their seemingly unbreakable threesome, but he wasn’t the most observant person on the earth. So it’s not really when it starts, and it’s not when it ends either. 

It doesn’t end when Betty finds out he’s homeless, the night she pins her family name to the murder board in the Blue and Gold office. 

“Juggie.... can I come crash on your couch? I don’t think I can go home tonight.” she bites her bottom lip and clenches her fists, and Jughead feels his heart break because he wants to say yes, yes of course you can come stay, you can have my bed, I’ll sleep on the floor but, well, he can’t. He’s sleeping in the janitor’s closet. 

“You could stay with Veronica.” he suggests, edging away from the subject. Betty frowns and he sighs. “Look, Betts, it’s just not a good idea, okay?”

“I’ve seen your home, Jughead. I know you live in a trailer, it’s not a big deal.” she reaches out, squeezes his shoulder. 

“That’s not it… Betty… the reason I was so upset about the Twilight is that I was living there. My dad thinks I’m couchsurfing, Archie and his dad think I still live in the trailer with my dad but I just couldn’t stay there anymore. Not after mom and Jellybean left us.” he looks down at the floor, ashamed. 

“Oh Jughead, no, no no no, where are you sleeping? You aren’t living on the streets are you? You’ll freeze to death!” Betty frowns deeply, grasping both of Jughead’s hands. 

“No, I um… I’ve been sleeping here. At school. In a closet.” he grimaces, afraid to meet Betty’s eye. “So, I mean, you can stay with me, if you want but. We’d be staying here. I don’t know if we’d both fit in my closet, though.” 

“Then we’ll sleep here. In the Blue and Gold. There’s a sofa.” Betty shrugged, immediately standing up to check the windows and doors. 

“You really could go stay with Veronica, Betts. In a real bed, in a real house.” 

“I want to stay with you.” Betty said, her voice serious as she stopped moving to look at him. “The past few weeks have been… well, a lot. But being around you makes me feel safer. So if that means staying the night in the school newspaper office, then so be it.”

She’s looking at him so intensely, and Jughead thinks that maybe he might burst. So he just sighs, an over the top and playful sound, and nods. 

“Do you want something to sleep in? I think I have an extra pair of sweats stashed somewhere.”

And that’s how he and Betty end up falling asleep together on the ratty couch in the Blue and Gold office, him in a tank top and flannel pajama pants, her in his sweats and one of his flannel shirts, hanging loose and long on her slender shoulders. 

It’s what he’s thinking about, later, when he crawls through her window and kisses her. The way she said she feels safe with him. The way she feels, warm and alive and snoozing beside him. The way she looks wearing his clothes.


	2. beauty, strong and clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So when her world is falling to pieces in front of her, when she’s questioning the one thing she was always sure of, and seeing just how much darkness lived in her mother’s heart, all she wants to do is run to Jughead, run to classic films and old literature and a shared plate of french fries at a late night diner.

Betty watches her best friend, Archie Andrews, try to throw his life away for a woman who is clearly manipulating him and wonders if she ever really loved him. That way, at least. Of course she loved Archie. Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper had known each other since they were four, they did everything together, they were best friends. But had she really been in love with him? Did Betty even know what love really was?

She’s thinking about all these things as she watches her mother rail at Archie, and Fred, and Ms. Grundy, watching as her mother twists a tragedy, twists the abuse of a minor, a family friend, into her weird vendetta against any boy who might pull her precious daughters out of her clawed grasp. Then her mother is trying to drag her home, nails digging into Betty’s upper arm, and suddenly all she wants to do is rewind this night and skip this whole mess of a trial, go to closing night at the Twilight, find Jughead, and watch James Dean and Natalie Wood fall in love, uniting to fight against small town bullshit. 

Her friendship with Jughead was always different than her friendship with Archie, and not just because of her stupid, juvenile crush on the red-headed boy next door. Ever since they were little, Betty had known that Jughead understood something about her that Archie never would. It was the thing her mother hated in her, the desire to fight back, to bite her nails, to refuse to accept the vision of submissive perfection her mother wanted for her. 

So when her world is falling to pieces in front of her, when she’s questioning the one thing she was always sure of, and seeing just how much darkness lived in her mother’s heart, all she wants to do is run to Jughead, run to classic films and old literature and a shared plate of french fries at a late night diner.

She settles for classic films and the cold ground of the closed Twilight, her head on his shoulder. 

After that, after the Grundy mess, and the Archie mess, and the Polly mess, and the constantly worsening mess of her relationship with her mother, Jughead is pretty much the only person she wants to talk to about any of it. She loves Kevin, but his dad is literally the sheriff, and she doesn’t want to put him in a situation he can’t deal with. And she loves Veronica too, but Veronica has her own mess to deal with, and she doesn’t have the history with Betty that Jughead does. 

See, Jughead had always thought Archie was the linchpin of their little threesome. But Betty was pretty sure they would have fallen apart without Jughead. Betty and Archie were friends, and they cared about each other, and traded childish crushes back and forth, but Jughead was the steady one. A mellowing influence on Archie’s flighty behavior and Betty’s obsessive perfection. Without Jughead, they would have self destructed.

She’s reminded of this, the day after the Twilight closes. She can’t bear to face Archie, not yet, not after last night, so she seeks out a quiet spot in the library, away from the hawk-like eyes of the librarian, and very, very quietly unwraps a sandwich. 

A few minutes later, Jughead slips into the corner beside her. 

“Thought you might be hiding here when you didn’t show up at the table.” he says as he sits down, slinging an arm over her shoulder and snatching one of the bags of potato chips from her lunch. “These are for me, right?”

“Who else would they be for, Juggie.” she said with a quiet laugh, rolling her eyes. “How’d you find me?”

“This is where you went last year, after the whole Cheryl and the river vixens debacle. Which, by the way, was absurd.” Jughead left his arm around her, crunching a potato chip. 

“What do you mean?” Betty frowned tilting her head up to look at him. 

“She called you fat, Betts. I could bench press you and I’m not even a jock. Besides, she was just mad people thought you were prettier than her.”

“I am not prettier than Cheryl, Jug, that’s ridiculous.” she rolled her eyes again. 

“I dunno Betts, Riverdale is a small town. A lotta guys go for that whole innocent, doe eyed angel thing around here. Of course, they don’t know you like I know you, and we both know you’re less ‘damsel in distress’ and more ‘Hitchcock blonde’.”

“Oh Juggie,” Betty swooned with a sarcastic chuckle. “Whatever would I do without you?”

“Perish, surely.” he replied, squeezing her shoulder and giving her that trademark crooked grin.

She’s reminded again, and again, and again, as the world unspools around them but he is still there, always still there. They fall asleep together on the couch in the office of the Blue and Gold, and he gives her his clothes to sleep in, and Betty’s heart does something funny in her chest she doesn’t think it’s ever done before. She feels fizzy, and light, and warm, and safe, like here, in this room, in his clothes, with Jughead at her side, none of the terrible things outside can touch her. 

He comes with her to find Polly, and they sit close together on the bus, and he puts a hand on her lower back whenever she starts to shake. She finds herself thinking, weirdly enough, about a night she spent with Archie and Jughead at the Andrews’, when they were still all just kids. 

Archie was sleeping in his bed, and Jughead and Betty were in sleeping bags on the floor. Archie was exhausted from his pee wee football practice and had fallen asleep ages ago. Betty and Jughead were wide awake, whispering in the dark as a rainstorm raged outside, rain and wind pinging at the roof. Thunder rolled through the sky, practically shaking the house, and Betty whimpered. 

“Betts.” Jughead hissed, his voice a whisper “Are you okay?”

“I’m afraid of storms. Sometimes they make the power go out, and I’m afraid of the dark. I know I’m too old and that’s silly but—”

“It’s okay to be scared. I’m scared of lots of things.” Jughead offered.

“Like what?” Betty whispered back, scooching closer to her friend on the floor. 

“Loud noises.” 

“Like thunder?” Betty asked, her eyes lighting up slightly. Jughead nodded.

“When Jellybean and I get scared, she crawls into my bed, so neither of us is scared anymore.”

“Mom doesn’t let Polly and I do that anymore.” Betty frowned, knitting her fingers together. 

“Your mom is scary.” Jughead said thoughtfully. “But she’s not here.” 

After that, Jughead had unzipped his sleeping bag halfway, pushing himself to one side. Betty hesitated, then grinned shyly and crawled out of her own pink sleeping bag and into Jughead’s, the two of them small enough to fit in easily. Whenever a wave of thunder crashed into the house, they’d squeeze each other’s hands. They were still curled together the next morning, when Fred woke them all up for breakfast. 

When Jughead sneaks into her room after the disaster at The Sisters of Quiet Mercy, she is happy to see him, but not surprised. Her chest swells with warmth when he smiles into her open window, murmurs ‘Hey there Juliet’ as he crawls over her window seat. He always had known when she needed someone. Needed him. 

So when he kisses her, hands warm and gentle on the sides of her face, she is happy, but not surprised. She kisses him back. She smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here's betty! hope you all enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> the second chapter is from Betty's POV and should be up tomorrow! It's already all done. work and chapter titles from 'you are the moon' by the hush sound


End file.
